Tanguy Ndombele is expecting to return to Tottenham in the summer, with Lyon not planning to pay the on-loan midfielder’s option.
Ndombele scored on his return to London on Thursday night as loan club Lyon held West Ham to a 1-1 draw in the Europa League quarter-final first leg.
The maverick Frenchman returned to his former club on a deal until the end of the season on deadline day in January and Lyon have the option to re-sign him permanently for £54million in the summer - roughly the same fee Spurs paid them in summer 2019.
However, neither Spurs nor Ndombele expect Lyon to exercise the option given the prohibitive sum involved, leaving the 25-year-old’s future uncertain.
Head coach Antonio Conte sees no future for Ndombele at Spurs, where he will still have three years on his contract in the summer, but the hope is that his performances back at Lyon will prompt interest from other clubs.
Ndombele is not the only expensive Spurs signing to have impressed on loan this week, with Giovani Lo Celso named man of the match in Villareal’s 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-final first leg.
Conte says he is happy for Lo Celso but suggested the Argentine was not suited to English football and insisted the decision to loan him back to Spain until the end of the season was still the right one for Spurs.
"I’m really happy for his great performance," Conte said. "He needed to play with regularity, with continuity. For this reason he went to Spain in a league he knows very well because he played very well and Tottenham bought him when he played in that league.
"To go back there and show he’s in good form is good for everybody, especially because Tottenham paid a lot of money for him. I am very happy because he is playing every game, he’s showing he’s a good player.
"I never said he’s not a good player. I said this league is very difficult because it is not enough to have great quality and it’s important to play with great intensity and strength. But now he is playing with regularity and I am very happy for him. The club made the right choice, yes."
